*Smaller amounts are accepted as well and will contribute to «collective purchases». Contributors to «collective purchases » will receive photograph of the object they contributed together with a signed an numbered certificate of authenticity stating how many people contributed to the purchase of the object and the amount you spent.

Thursday, 27 May 2010

Little Joe is a new biannual publication looking at film from a different perspective. It is a direct move away from the traditional method of reviewing all current and future releases towards a more selective and eclectic focus on films that inspire alternative discourse. Our first issue features interviews with directors Jack Hazan (A Bigger Splash) and Tom Kalin (Swoon, Savage Grace), a profile of experimental pornographer Fred Halsted by artist William E Jones, essays on films including American Gigolo, Cruising, Song of the Loon, stunning photographs of cult actress Karen Black by filmmaker Cam Archer, and specially commissioned artworks by Stuart Sandford, Yvan Martinez and Joshua Trees.

Please come and celebrate the launch of Little Joe, a magazine about queers and cinema, mostly.

Monday, 24 May 2010

Juan Downey's 'Video Trans Americas' combines aspects of travelogue, visual anthropology, the study of architectural and geographical space, politics and poetry. Responding in part to the 1973 military coup in Chile, Downey wanted to foster a transnational Latin American identity. He initially envisaged his project as a road trip, from New York to the southern tip of Latin America, during which he would videotape aspects of the distinct cultures )art, architecture, cooking, dance, landscape, language, etc.) of the regions he passed through. At the same time, he would show the local inhabitants previous tapes shot along the way, in order to share information and overcome the isolation of individual communities.

In practice, the fourteen videos that eventually formed the installation were made over a series of journeys between 1973 and 1976. each video es positioned on a map of the Americas to show the location of filming.

Juan Downey (1940-1993) was born in Santiago Chile. He lived and worked in New York.

'Video Trans Americas' acquired for Tate by the Latin American Acquisitions Committee.

Afro-Modernism: Journeys through the Black AtlanticTate Liverpool29 January – 25 April 2010

Afro-Modernism: Journeys through the Black Atlantic takes its inspiration from Paul Gilroy’s seminal book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993). The exhibition is the first to trace in depth the impact of Black Atlantic culture on visual Modernisms from the early twentieth century to today. From the appropriation of African art by Modernist artists such as Picasso, the Black Atlantic modernism of Aaron Douglas and craze for black culture embodied by Josephine Baker, by way of the créolité (creoleness) of artists such as Wilfredo Lam, to the work of contemporary artists including Kara Walker, Ellen Gallagher and Chris Ofili, the exhibition will reflect how artists around the Atlantic have negotiated both the language of Modernism and black cultures and histories in diverse and complex ways.

In 1993 Paul Gilroy coined the term ‘The Black Atlantic’ to describe a ‘counterculture of modernity’ as well as a fusion of Black cultures with other cultures from around the Atlantic. His book had an enormous impact on the ways Black culture has been perceived and discussed within the field of cultural studies, stimulating ongoing critical debates. Afro-Modernism: Journeys through the Black Atlantic reflects this idea of the Atlantic Ocean as a ‘continent in negative’, a network of cultures encompassing Africa, North and South America, the Caribbean and Europe and traces real and imaginary routes taken by artists across the Atlantic from 1909 to today.

Liverpool’s location as a gateway to the Atlantic and the history and legacy of its involvement in slavery makes this exploration of Black Atlantic culture pertinent to the city and museum. The dispersal of people of Black African descent – many forcibly displaced by the slave trade – had a profound impact on art and culture that has been frequently overlooked or diminished. The exhibition is divided into seven chronological chapters, ranging from early 20th century avant-garde movements such as the Harlem Renaissance to current discussions addressing ‘Post-Black’ art. It opens up an alternative, transatlantic reading of Modernism and its impact on contemporary culture. Afro-Modernism: Journeys through the Black Atlantic features work by artists including Romare Bearden, Constantin Brancusi, Edward Burra, Renee Cox, Aaron Douglas, Walker Evans, Ellen Gallagher, David Hammons, Isaac Julien, Wilfredo Lam, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Ronald Moody, Wangechi Mutu, Uche Okeke, Hélio Oiticica, Pablo Picasso, Keith Piper, Tracey Rose and Kara Walker.

Afro-Modernism: Journeys through the Black Atlantic has been conceived and developed by Tanya Barson, Curator of International Art at Tate Modern and is curated by Tanya Barson and Peter Gorschlüter, Head of Exhibitions and Displays at Tate Liverpool. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with texts by recognised scholars in the field including Petrine Archer-Straw, Kobena Mercer, Huey Copeland and Glenn Ligon, Manthia Diawara and Edouard Glissant, and Courtney J. Martin.

EXHIBITIONS, PROJECTS AND TEXTS BY PLB

ABOUT ME

"At the end of the fifteenth of his 'Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind' Schiller states a paradox and makes a promise. He declares that ‘Man is only completely human when he plays’, and assures us that this paradox is capable ‘of bearing the whole edifice of the art of the beautiful and of the still more difficult art of living’. We could reformulate this thought as follows: there exists a specific sensory experience—the aesthetic—that holds the promise of both a new world of Art and a new life for individuals and the community. There are different ways of coming to terms with this statement and this promise. You can say that they virtually define the ‘aesthetic illusion’ as a device which merely serves to mask the reality that aesthetic judgement is structured by class domination. In my view that is not the most productive approach..." from
Jacques Rancier, 'The Aesthetic Revolution and its Outcomes', New Left Review 14, April-March 2002

SHORT BIO

Pablo León de la Barra is an exhibition maker, independent curator and researcher. He was born in Mexico City in 1972. León de la Barra has a PhD in History and Theories from the Architectural Association, London. He has curated among other exhibitions ‘To Be Political it Has to Look Nice’ (2003) at apexart and Art in General in New York; ‘PR04 Biennale’ (2004, co-curator) in Puerto Rico; ‘George and Dragon at ICA’ (2005) at the ICA-London; ‘Glory Hole’ (2006) at the Architecture Foundation-London; ‘Sueño de Casa Propia’(2007-2008, in collaboration with Maria Ines Rodriguez) at Centre de Art Contemporaine-Geneve, Casa Encendida-Madrid, Casa del Lago-Mexico City, and Cordoba, Spain; ‘This Is Not America’ at Beta Local in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2009); ‘Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, Yucatan and Elsewhere’, at the CCE in Guatemala (2010); ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’, Cerith Wyn Evans at Casa Barragan, Mexico City (2010); ‘Incidents of Mirror Travel in Yucatan and Elsewhere’, at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2011); 'Bananas is my Business: the Southamerican Way' at Museu Carmen Miranda, Rio de Janeiro (co-curated with Julieta Gonzalez, 2011); 'MicroclimaS' at Kunsthalle Zurich (2012); 'Esquemas para una Oda Tropical', Rio de Janeiro, 2012; 'Marta 'Che' Traba' at Museo La Ene, Buenos Aires (2012); Novo Museo Tropical at Teoretica, San Jose, Costa Rica (2012); Museu Labirinto / Museum of Unlimited Growth, ArtRio, Rio de Janeiro (2012); The Camino Real Arcades, Lima, Peru (2012). PLB has acted as advisor and/or art curator for the following art fairs: Pinta/London (2010-12), Maco/Mexico (2009-1012), Circa/Puerto Rico (2010), La Otra/Bogota (2009), ArteBA/ Buenos Aires (2012), ArtRio/Rio de Janeiro (2011-2013). León de la Barra has written amongst other publications for: Frog/Paris, PinUp/New York, Purple/Paris, Spike/Austria, Tar/Italy, Wallpaper/London, Celeste/Mexico, Tomo/Mexico, Rufino/Mexico, Ramona/Buenos Aires, Metropolis M/Amsterdam, Numero Cero/Puerto Rico. PLB has also written texts for many artists and exhibition catalogues, lectured internationally and participated in many international symposiums where relevant topics to arts, culture and society have been discussed. PLB was co-director of ‘24-7’ an artists-curatorial collective in London from 2002-2005 and artistic director of ‘Blow de la Barra’ in London from 2005-2008. From 2005 to 2012 he was curator of the White Cubicle Gallery in London, a community art space which he also founded. He is also founder of the Novo Museo Tropical, a museum yet to physically exist somewhere in the tropics and curated the First Bienal Tropical in San Juan Puerto Rico (2011). He is also the publisher of Pablo Internacional Editions and editor of his own blog the Centre for the Aesthetic Revolution. He lives and works between London, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, San Juan, Bogota, Lima, Athens, Beirut...